Transition committee ponders Somerset's shift from coal power

Monday

Sep 9, 2013 at 12:01 AMSep 9, 2013 at 9:04 AM

About 60 people turned out on a beautiful Saturday morning to discuss strategies on how to keep their town afloat as coal-fired power plants struggle. The loosely defined Somerset Citizen Transition Committee generated many ideas and concerns.

Michael Holtzman

About 60 people turned out on a beautiful Saturday morning to discuss strategies on how to keep their town afloat as coal-fired power plants struggle. The loosely defined Somerset Citizen Transition Committee generated many ideas and concerns.

A decidedly older population was in attendance at the meeting, which was held at the public library and lasted for more than two hours. What was striking was who was not there: Not one elected official, town or state, attended — not even for a greeting.

“All of the officials were invited to attend today. Not one has seen fit to show up. I find that terribly disappointing,” said Pauline Rodrigues, one of the Citizen Transition Committee founders.

Jean Fox, former Freetown selectwoman for six years, who is project manager for South Coast Rail with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, said she sees the transition from coal power plants as “a regional issue” affecting surrounding communities.

As a redevelopment challenge, Fox said, it “reverberates” throughout the region.

She commended the groups and leaders, including Bill Napolitano of the Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District, retired city planner Al Lima of Fall River, and Sylvia Broude of the Toxics Action Center, for their passion at the program.

Fox called the lack of local government officials present “extremely unfortunate."

"If I was a selectman in the town, I would absolutely have been here,” she said.

Fox called Somerset’s 14 miles of waterfront frontage “a jewel in the crown” to build upon.

Guidance and direction

For Daniel Shea, 29, of Chace Street, one of the younger people attending, he sees potential despite the huge problems of one power plant shutdown and uncertainty surrounding mammoth Brayton Point Power Station that not long ago produced $12 million to $13 million a year in town taxes.

Shea, a former business owner in the health care field in Dartmouth, said he moved to town three years ago and believes in its ability to attract good businesses and people.

There was considerable focus on the shuttered Montaup power plant site, with about 30 acres and an estimated 2,000 feet of waterfront on Riverside Avenue — and about to be sold again.

“We can’t force people to do something with the site,” Shea said, echoing a statement made in various forms at the forum, “but we can guide them and direct them.” He said those efforts could help the marketing for would-be owners.

“It’s your community … show what you’d like your community to look like … the Transition Committee is basically you,” Napolitano, who’s worked in planning with Somerset and area towns for decades, said in opening introductions.

He urged bringing “younger blood” to the transition committee dialogue.

He later led a group that came up with this key concern: “Do town government policies promote job growth and economic development?”

3 little girls and a new school

“You know what the biggest obstacle is to not accomplishing something?” Lima said. “You don’t ask for what you want to happen.”

An example provided by Lori Bleche, manager of the cable access TV station, seemed to show that point.

The lifelong resident remembered “three little girls … singing, ‘You make a difference in our lives,'” as a way to market the Somerset Berkley Regional High School. The new, $82 million school is set to open in a year.

“Boom! Sold!” she recalled.

Lima outlined aspects of Somerset’s 2007 master plan, and how the guideposts addressed planning for times when the power plants no longer produced nearly half the town’s revenue.

“Today is about building a consensus,” he said.

Other leaders offered backgrounds about what was being done in state communities grappling with similar issues, such as Salem, where half of the coal-fired Salem Harbor Power Plant has been decommissioned and the other half will be next year. But opinions differed.

Keep Brayton Point

“I don’t want to see extremist views come into this town,” said Bill Coughlin of Riverside Avenue, who lived in Somerset for 25 years.

“We have natural gas up the yin-yang,” Coughlin said. “Let’s keep Brayton Point open and get other jobs back there.”

Don Ranger, who’s owned Somerset Marina for 30 years, had a similar view. He recalled his annual taxes being $1,700. They're now at $25,000 for his 100-slip marina.

“We have to do something to keep the power plant going, whether it’s nuclear or LNG,” he said.

Ranger, who lives near Dighton's small power plant, which he says runs but a few times a year, went a step further.

“We need it no matter what they burn. If there’s a little smoke in the air, I don’t mind breathing in that smoke,” Ranger said in regard to pollution.

“You don’t live here, buddy. You didn’t lose a wife like I did,” replied an angry Jeremiah Silva, who lives on Ripley Street, which runs along the 300-acre Brayton Point site.

That type of intense, but brief, exchange was the rarity compared with shared ideas.

Later Ranger said, “I’d like to see it go to cleaner-burning.”

3 groups: land use, Montaup and economic development

About halfway through, they broke into three groups with three topics: Lima heading land use planning, Napolitano on economic redevelopment and Broude and Shanna Cleveland, a lawyer with the Conservation Law Foundation, addressing Montaup’s redevelopment.

A pressing question for many was what will happen at the fourth time a scheduled bankruptcy auction is slated to be held on Sept. 30. About two weeks ago, after reported suspicious activity, Richard Gordon of Baystate Engineering in Holliston told police he was taking ownership by that date.

Both Gordon and Montaup's current owner, Asset Recovery Group of New Jersey, have not returned phone calls or provided information. At the same time, more than $300,000 is owed in back taxes.

Broude addressed that inaccessibility and said their small group wondered “what town leaders should do?” She said they talked about zoning and various restrictions for development at that former Montaup site.

One thought was for Somerset to align itself with Fall River as the city awaits redevelopment of Weaver’s Cove, directly across the Taunton River.

$200,000 for Salem

She also noted, as Cleveland addressed in detail, the $200,000 made available to Salem through state legislation and a mandated task force to help communities transition from coal.

Sharron Machamer of the Citizen Transition Committee said of the power plant sites, “We don’t know what’s in the cards, but we want to be ready for it. Change is definitely in the wind.”

“What we really want is a healthy, thriving town with jobs … with places that bring people together,” Lima said on behalf of his 10-person group.

Referencing what Cleveland said about limited citizen participation in Salem on how to manage the $200,000 in power plant reuse resources, Lima said, “I think Somerset could do better” to “build on what you have.”

Claire L’Archevesque, a senior citizen who lives on Almy Road about four months of the year during the warm weather, said she’d like to see the town seek federal funding to clean up the Montaup site.

“Why don’t we concentrate on the one that’s closed?” she said.

One former selectman, Lorne Lawless, attended the forum.

“One thing I see happening is a lot of people are on fixed incomes,” Lawless said of the aging town population.

He said tax raises could cause those people to default and, being unable to pay, cause revenues to drop further.

'They love their town'

Lima said afterwards he thought “there was good group participation."

"They’re concerned and committed, and they love their town,” he said.

Renee Driscoll, of Somerset, a town elementary school health teacher and member of the Coalition for Clean Air, said, “I feel like we’re heading in the right direction.”

A large majority of attendees came from Somerset, based upon sign-ups and the composition of the Citizen Transition Committee. The group expects state energy officials to hold a forum in town this month or in October to discuss how they can assist the town with funding and resources.

This workshop will be shown over the Somerset Cable TV access station, channel 9.